Is Print dead?

But is it really? The answer may depend on who you ask. If you ask any account manager at People magazine, you might get a reassuring and positive answer that print is alive. However, media strategists and analysts beg to differ and insist that print is a dying medium. I am on the fence about this issue. Although I go on the Internet on a daily basis for information, I truly look forward to checking my mailbox on Friday to get my weekly issue of People magazine. A smile always comes to my face when I get it because it means that the work week is done. I can sit on my couch, forget my worries and catch up on my entertainment news. The same goes for me when it comes to high fashion magazines, such as Vogue. While both magazines have a robust website with various new articles on them, I still think there is something special and unique, even luxurious, about reading a big, high-end glossy magazine. A guilty pleasure you might ask? Whatever you want to call it works for me. I just don’t get the same feeling of excitement and relaxation when I read similar people-oriented or fashion-based articles on the Web. You just can’t curl up and relax with a computer screen and an internet-based article.

However, one benefit of the Web is speed. Since I am time-starved and busy with work and school, I turn to the Web for most of my daily news and other information such as advertising and media trends. Searching for news on the Internet is quick and easy and I get all the information with a few clicks of the mouse.

After reading an article by Jeff Jarvis, former print editor, now a consultant and blogger at BuzzMachine.com and John Griffin, President of the National Geographic Society's magazine group regarding the demise of print, I feel confident that the strong magazines will survive. I take the side of Griffin especially when he says “there is tremendous value in passionate, knowledgeable, talented editors who can assign stories and photographs with budgets to do them better and more authoritatively than any individual can. The reader of a magazine like National Geographic can depend on the information being accurate, coherent, concise, beautiful and created by the by most talented writers and photographers in the world. And readers may learn about something that they didn't know they were interested in.”

Spending quality time with engaging content and entertaining visuals truly makes for a luxurious experience that readers can’t recreate on the Internet.